Thank you all for your continued interest (now, if only one of you was a secret Mazak expert!!)

Biggles - tidal power is the one, I think. Even as I write this it's lashing down with rain again, and blowing a merry gale, again. I've lost count now, but it's been roughly 1/week since sometime in November. Fortunately, we're out of harms way (even down on the docks, ironically, as the gates can be closed to keep the water out, but the Mersey hasn't flooded anyway).

nrml - Well.... maybe.... I'm not sure I've got the tenacity that Andrew's got, and I certainly don't have as much "spare" time. But I'll give it a good go!

Rob - No e-stop needed yet... need an e-start first! I'll turn the butt plug up on the old Edgwick! It cuts a taper anyway, so that saves some time

Logged

Cheers!Ade.--Location: Wallasey, Merseyside. A long way from anywhere.Or: Zhengzhou, China. An even longer way from anywhere...Skype: adev73

Regrettably not yet. Having got as far as powering it on & determining the controller isn't booting, I've got as far as registering it with Mazak & got a quote for a reprint of the documentation (slightly over £300!), which I couldn't afford at the time... Since then, I've started to move into a new & even bigger workshop, so everything's been on hold for the last 6 months. I'm hoping to be fully moved by Christmas, then I've got a few other fish to fry, so with luck I'll be able to get back to it around February/March time.... fingers crossed.

So, at the moment, it's just a big green hulk of a thing taking up room. Fortunately, the new workshop will make it look a bit smaller, and therefore (maybe) more managable

Logged

Cheers!Ade.--Location: Wallasey, Merseyside. A long way from anywhere.Or: Zhengzhou, China. An even longer way from anywhere...Skype: adev73

Basically, it was successfully moved into the new workshop, but not in a position where it could readily be used, or even accessed... I am slowly working towards it in terms of space, still a fair way to go though.

Some good news, I start a new job in March which will significantly boost available finances... so I should be able to get hold of those manuals, etc. And, with a bit of luck, I might even be able to make a start on cleaning it up, and some electronics tests...

Nice one Ade, yes a "big impractical and daft to own machines" sub-club would be good. Just a suggestion, nock though into the kitchen if you are next door and you could have a his and hers with the kitchen sink in the middle! :

As you might have heard thereís a bit of weather happening here at 5he moment, said he happily laid on the bed typing on this iPad thing whilst looking out at the blizzard.

Might go to workshop later and turn up an oak platter I think . Thereís method in this madness as oak platter ( to accommodate lemon drizzle cake) needs aforementioned cake to check it for size. Friends wife will then declare cake now surplus to needs !

Should I start the coffee maker before or after turning the platter ? Decisions, decisions....

"A bit of weather" - it's not too bad over here on t'West coast (it was even warmer in China...), I painted the office on the weekend (1st coat), started the 2nd coat on Tuesday but the pipes froze so now I've no way of cleaning my brushes.... so painting is at a standstill until it thaws. Or i take a barrel home and fill it with water...

Watched a video on YT last night (this one, about heat pumps) and it got me thinking.... My AC unit has decided to break, just after having a £300 refill of gas, and the company I bought it off don't seem to give a stuff about fixing it, so I got to thinking of alternatives... and a largeish reversible heat pump struck me as being a possible answer.... In winter, the "cold" end of the heat pump would be outside, and the hot end inside, thus heating the workshop. In summer, turn it round so the indoor cold end provides air cooling.... Drive the whole thing with either an electric motor... or a 6hp diesel engine I happen to have knocking about... I might start a new thread for this...

Logged

Cheers!Ade.--Location: Wallasey, Merseyside. A long way from anywhere.Or: Zhengzhou, China. An even longer way from anywhere...Skype: adev73

May I offer a few observations regarding heat pumps. Please forgive me if I'm 'teaching Grannie to suck eggs'!

The figure of merit for a heat pump is called the 'Coefficient of Performance' ('CoP'). CoP equates to the ratio of the heat you move divided by the energy your pump needs to achieve the moving, so big is better. It's the absolute temperature (i.e. degrees Kelvin) at the heat source divided by the difference between the source and output temperatures. (It might be the output temperature rather than the source temperature, I forget. It doesn't alter what I'm going to say next because, with absolute zero being -273į C, they're almost the same thing!)

The point is, to achieve a high CoP you need to keep the difference between source and output temperatures small.

So, if you're using the heat pump for heating, you need to prevent/avoid the heat gathering system from icing up. Ice is a very poor conductor of heat so the pump has to lower the temperature of the gathering system to 'suck' the heat in through the ice. The temperature that is actually effective in the CoP calculation is the temperature at the coldest point, if that falls, the operating differential gets correspondingly bigger, reducing the CoP.

In my view, that means steer clear of air source systems and give preference to ground-water or running water sources. Put enough tubing in the heat gathering system to avoid the source water freezing. Can you chuck a couple of hundred feet or so of copper pipe into the Mersey?

Logged

Best regards,

Pete W.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you haven't seen the latest change-note!

watched a bit of the video - nice lathe in the background at one point. Could only tolerate a few seconds of the verbal - seemed like he thought heat bumps had only just been invented. As with solar water heating, subsidised PV etc the thing to look at is not COP stuff but reliability and lifetime. Although it seems like you are saving money on heat at a fraction of the cost of the electricity you put in you need to work out cost of any mandatory maintenance, planning permission, service charges and how long it will last. Suddenly the savings plummet.